Ammersee Railway

The Ammersee Railway (German: Ammerseebahn) is a 54 km long single-tracked main line in the provinces of Swabia and Upper Bavaria in southern Germany. It runs from Mering near Augsburg via Geltendorf to Weilheim and is listed by the Deutsche Bahn as Kursbuchstrecke 985.

Construction

The Mering–Geltendorf–Schondorf (29.77 km) and Weilheim–Dießen (13.07 km) sections were the first to be constructed. They were built by the Augsburg railway division of the Royal Bavarian State Railways and were completed simultaneously on 30 June 1898. The intervening 18.36 km section from Dießen to Schondorf was finished on 24 December 1898.

Electrification

The line was electrified between Mering and Geltendorf from 7 September 1970 in order to provide a diversionary line for the heavily trafficked trunk route from Augsburg to Munich, the Geltendorf–Munich-Passing having been electrified two years earlier.

Nowadays the Ammersee Railway in only of regional importance. Trains run hourly from Augsburg-Oberhausen via Weilheim to Schongau and back. Until the early 1990s there were still long-distance trains (the FD-Züge) on the line that did not take the 'bypass' via Munich on their way from the north of Germany to Garmisch-Partenkirchen, but went directly from Augsburg along the Ammersee Railway to Weilheim. One curious aspect was the mode of operation on the non-electrified section from Geltendorf to Weilheim. A diesel engine was hooked up to the train in Geltendorf or Weilheim and the electric locomotive was hauled along with its pantographs lowered.